Kenny quits charity in show of support for staff

PAT Kenny has severed his ties with the Alzheimer Society of Ireland, but says he does not want a Central Remedial Clinic (CRC) or Rehab-type story associated with the charity.

He said he was no longer willing to work as an advocate for the society because of its treatment of staff in an industrial relations dispute.

The veteran TV and radio personality said one of the staff involved was instrumental in the treatment of his mother when she had Alzheimer's.

"I had a feeling anyway that my association - doing the tea day ads and so on - was coming to an end because campaigns like that are effective only when they're renewed again and again with maybe different voices," he said on his News-talk show this morning.

"Different families have been affected by Alzheimer's, so just indicating to them that I wouldn't be involved next year there were two elements, and one was that.

solidarity

"The second was the story - there was some sort of reorganisation inside the Alzheimer Society.

"One of the people affected was someone who is hugely instrumental in our family, getting through my mother's Alzheimer's condition - the condition she died from. When one of those people was treated in a way which I didn't like very much - I thought she was badly treated - I felt out of a sense of loyalty that I should show some solidarity."

But Mr Kenny indicated that he wanted people to continue supporting the charity, in contrast to the scandals at CRC and Rehab which led to a massive and potentially damaging reduction in donations.

"The last thing I wanted out of this was a CRC or Rehab story associated with a society that had done so much good for not alone my family but for everybody else," he said.

Four managers at the charity were offered only a statutory figure despite being made compulsorily redundant.